Quantitative Analysis of Hydrocarbons in Gas Oils by Two-Dimensional Comprehensive Gas Chromatography with Vacuum Ultraviolet Detection

International audience; Gas oils (GOs) analysis is essential for production process control, in order to meet quality standards, to render these products safer for the environment, and to support research for alternative fuels. GOs quantitative analysis can be commonly achieved by employing two-dimensional comprehensive gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC × GC-FID) in combination with identification templates. However, in order to perform quantification for families which coelute in GC × GC analysis (e.g., naphthenes/olefins or polynaphthenes/monoaromatics), prefractionation of gas oil before GC × GC analysis is necessary. Recent introduction of the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) detector has offered new possibilities in GOs analysis, as this detector can discern between the majority of hydrocarbon families thus possibly rendering the gas oil prefractionation unnecessary. Additionally, it can perform quantification according to Beer–Lambert’s law provided that VUV relative response factors (RRFs) are known. The purpose of this work is to report, for the first time, VUV RRFs for numerous hydrocarbons in GOs (∼160) according to their family and their carbon number, permitting to perform their direct quantification without the necessity of GO prefractionation. VUV RRFs were measured by using a GC × GC-VUV/FID dual detection setup in which FID was employed as a quantitative reference. In order to obtain VUV RRFs representative for any gas oil, a set of 14 GOs with different origins was employed. Both VUV RRFs averaged in the 125–240 nm range and spectral VUV RRFs (reference spectra) were obtained. It was demonstrated that VUV RRFs were similar between employed GOs allowing their universal use. Obtained RRFs were used to perform hydrocarbons quantification for a light cycle oil (LCO) by GC × GC-VUV, with olefins and naphthenes being quantified through spectral decomposition. Good comparability with results obtained by prefractionation was observed demonstrating the great interest of the GC × GC-VUV approach for the detailed and rapid analysis of hydrocarbons in gas oils.